


Garden Variety

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21953425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Tea in the Citadel Royal Gardens is not the first place Nyx would have expected to spend an afternoon. But Noctis had insisted.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Nyx Ulric
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Garden Variety

**Author's Note:**

> Originally for the Full Bloom FFXV Zine

Garden Variety - by Aithilin

Nyx Ulric had never seen such a carefully cultivated and crafted garden before. He had walked the streets of the Lucian capital for years and never thought much of the trimmed and neat flower beds that lined the avenues, or the seemingly perfect trees that peeked between the buildings and shaded the narrow pedestrian veins through the beating heart of the city centre. He had never given much thought to the lofty, isolated gardens of the Citadel, secured behind the polished high walls of the palace. 

He had never given much thought to Lucian gardens before at all. 

Certainly not until he started wandering the narrow paths of polished stone laid out between the fine beds of artistic flowers and shrubs. At first as a guard performing the trudging pace of his duty, eyes trained on the windows, the doors, the little shadowed niches between the budding trees and behind the statues. And then with the appreciation of a guest, an arm linked with the Crown Prince’s beneath the bright sun of the Lucian morning. 

Nyx had always been used to the wild array of wildflowers back home; the blankets of colours and fragrance seeping across every open space as the winds scattered the pastel petals through his hometown. Until the screens of doors and windows were dotted with the soft spring colours, and the more vibrant hues of the early blossoms were blazing across the wild forests that threatened to overtake the little towns carefully cut from the mountains and shores. He was used to practical gardens, like his mother’s, and the scattered collection of tiny sprouts that would be a surprise until the leaves took shape or the seasons marched on to show them just what had ended up where. 

He was used to the haphazard orchards and flower boxes of home, where the seeds grew where they fell the year before, sown by birds more than careful hands. 

Lines of blossoming fruit trees, he thought, should mark the orchards. The shade cast by the outstretched limbs just regaining their weight and life a perfect place for a spring picnic. 

It was odd to see the single, familiar trees set apart from each other. Boxed and caged in the Citadel gardens like memorials— and if he looked more carefully at the little plaques, probably did stand as some memorial or another— he wondered if the trees would ever actually bear fruit. Or if they just stood there, useless after the single season, despite the fluttering songbirds that had braved the winds and the stone, and the strange people who milled about in their finery, to nest among the blossoms. 

Placards were posted at each ornate flower bed— the different styles and sizes, some raised, some lowered— marked the garden as an exhibit. Each flower carefully illustrated and noted, engraved explanations set into the bronzed metal just as if explaining a painting or a statue in a museum. As if the skeletal display of stolen nature had been hand crafted by an artist for the enjoyment of the attending Crown City citizens. There were Leiden succulents, spread in even, measured spaces along the pathways— a woman giggling as her skirts snagged the thorns of one— and the rare dessert lilies Nyx had only ever seen growing in clumps of prairie grasses near the tattered borders of Cavaugh. There were water lilies blooming in bright whites and pinks on the fountain pools, their fragrance lost amid the perfume of the young women crouching to admire them. 

He noticed the weeds first. 

He thought they were meant to be there for the briefest of moments, before he overheard someone commenting on the blight of the yellow dandelions peeking through the Duscaen clover and Cleigne forest heather. He smiled as Noctis started to point them out— the little white clovers here and there, spreading away from their carefully constructed Citadel prison. The phlox spilling over in bright, vivid variations of their delicate flowers, away from where a gardener had tried to fence it all in. 

As they walked the narrow paths, they spotted the cracks in the polished stone, where the green grass had started to push through. Where the jagged edge of a stubborn yellow dandelion peeked through the tiny flaw overlooked by a caretaker. 

When they took their seats in the garden plaza, between the rows of colourful tulips— the empty dirt beneath the long stems a perfect spot for the persistent clover and occasional bluebell to take hold among the roots— and the shade of the fragrant lilacs, Nyx was suddenly aware of the eyes on him. Eyes on Noctis that set the soldier’s instincts that had been drilled into him on edge, and the looks of curiosity reserved for him. A look he had seen quickly directed at the unwelcome weeds he had been admiring. 

“Ignore them,” Noctis muttered as he took a seat— the metal legs of the chair scraping against the stone as he offered a defiant smile. 

“You ignore them,” Nyx shot back; harsher than he intended, more defensive than he expected. He hid the discomfort by turning his attention toward the strange flowers that looked like fireworks on stems. Colourful blossoms a sphere between the foxglove and proud, familiar lupin. 

“I am,” Noctis seemed at ease despite the eyes on them and the attention cast towards their little table among the pristine flowers. It was attention that was hastily turned aside or lowered as Nyx tried to meet each gaze with a level look of his own. Instead of losing that scornful battle, he turned his focus back to Noctis and the wayward blossoms clinging to his clothes, to his hair; a temptation to reach out and make sure the scandalized nobility had something better to talk about than the weeds infiltrating the pride of Lucian cultivation. “Ready for that tea? Or are you going to keep staring at the wildflowers.”

That had been the reason for this outing, after all. The delicacy of a Lucian garden tea. Nyx would have preferred a quick trip out to the nice little cafe in his considerably rougher neighbourhood, but Noctis had insisted on a spectacle of a ‘blooming tea’. 

“I am the wildflower, highness.”

The teapot was delivered just as Noctis made a face at his title. 

The glass pot was placed between them like it was a work of art. Like the revelation of the flower opening within the steaming water was some miracle of Lucian invention. Vivid orange and red petals unfurled in layers, brought to life and magnified beneath the water as it slowly steeped. It was set down like it was meant to be admired, a flourish as the waitstaff arranged their cups, saucers, and droned about the best time to wait for the tea to finish blooming. Nyx could only nod, tongue firmly held between his teeth until they were left alone with the wet flower in a hot glass pot. 

“We’re drinking this?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a weed.”

“Is it?” Nyx knew that tone— that little feigned lilt of confusion as Noctis teased an innocent look and tried to bite back a smile. “I had no idea.”

“We’re drinking a weed.”

“A Galahdian weed.”

Nyx matched the smile Noctis offered him, and helped himself to one of the little cookies instead. He had grown up seeing these little flowers blazing across fields and mountainsides. He had watched his sister rip them up by the handful to weave them together into crowns and bracelets, braided into his hair as he lazed in the sun with Libertus. He had never thought that somewhere, at some time, he would be staring at the familiar fiery blossom on a table, while Lucian nobility called it a delicacy. 

“You Lucians have strange taste, little prince.”

“I like my Galahdian wildflowers.”


End file.
